Convicted murderer given additional 75-180 years in prison

WEST CHESTER — Saying that he was incapable of any form of rehabilitation, a Common Pleas Court judge on Friday sentenced Laquanta Chapman to an additional 75 to 180 years in prison for the 2008 murder of a Coatesville teenager, whose body was dismembered by chainsaws, beyond the death sentence he was mandated to impose.

“Most of the people who stand before me are not evil, they are just behaving badly,” Judge William P. Mahon told Chapman, who was found guilty of first-degree murder and other charges and condemned to death by a jury in November for the killing of 16-year-old Aaron Turner. Mahon said he many times gives self described “long-winded” lectures to criminal defendants in hopes they will take his advice to heart and turn their lives around.

“That makes it a win-win situation,” Mahon said during Chapman’s formal sentencing hearing in a courtroom packed with relatives of the victim, of the defendant, police, attorneys, and even two of the jurors in the case. “Mr. Chapman, there is no win-win in this. You are evil, and not fit to walk among us.”

The additional years behind bars may seem absurd for someone sentenced to die by lethal injection, but are necessary to insure that should an appellate court vacate that sentence, Chapman will not be freed, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Carmody, who led the prosecution aganst Chapman.

“I feel I want to do it so that Mr. Chapman never gets out,” Carmody said in asking Mahon for the consecutive time. “I have never dealt with a case like this. He treated Aaron like a piece of trash.”

Chapman, 33, of Coatesville was found guilty after a three-week long trial of the Oct. 30, 2008 murder of Turner, a young neighbor who had become involved with Chapman in the drug business. According to the evidence compiled by Coatesville police and Chester County detectives, Chapman lured Turner to his home on South Chester Avenue, argued with him, forced him to the basement, ordered him to remove his clothes, and then, with another man who has yet to be arrested, shot him multiple times.

Later, with the help of his cousin, Brian Byrd, who was visiting from New Jersey, Chapman used two chain saws to cut up Turner’s body, and put the pieces into several trash bags, which he left out for collection. He also cut and dismembered a pit bull in an attempt to hide evidence of the murder.

Turner’s body has never been found. Byrd, who cooperated with authorities and testified against Chapman at trial, will be sentenced in the coming year.

Chapman, who did not speak at the proceeding Friday and has maintained his silence in previous court hearings since his arrest for Turner’s murder in 2009, wore a blue cotton sweater and striped blue shirt with grey pants. He did not look at the various witnesses who spoke the hearing, and remained almost expressionless as Mahon spoke of him.

One of his attorneys, J, Michael Farrell of Philadelphia, who had handled the penalty phase of his trial, told Mahon he believed the death penalty should be overturned. It is expensive, inefficient, and discriminatory, he said. “We cannot teach a man that it is wrong to kill by killing him,” he told Mahon.

Outside the courtroom, Farrell said he would begin an appeal of Chapman’s conviction and sentence soon. “We are obviously committed to saving his life, and that fight has just begun.”

Evan Kelly of West Chester, who had been Chapman’s attorney in the guilt phase of the trial, told Mahon he was leaving the case and turning the appeal over to Farrell. He declined comment further.

Although Chapman’s ultimate fate was known – the jury’s decision to impose the death penalty could not be overturned by Mahon – the hearing was nevertheless an emotional one. Turner’s grandparents spoke on the victim’s behalf and of the devastation his death had caused, and the sounds of muffled cries could be heard throughout.

The two jurors who attended the proceeding – a man and woman who declined to identify themselves or comment on the hearing afterwards – were also visibly moved by the witness statements, fighting back tears as they listened to the family.

Speaking first, Geraldine Turner, the victim’s step-grandmother, reminded Mahon that her grandson would have turned 20 on Monday – Christmas Eve – if he were still alive.

“The last four years have been hard on us, and have broken our hearts,” Geraldine Turner said. “He was very special and dear to us because he lost his father at an early age. For anyone to mistreat him like this is just out of the movies. It is unimaginable.”

Geraldine Turner told Mahon that she and her family had tried to accept Chapman’s family, including his mother, Cynthia Chapman Graves, into the Coatesville community when they moved in across the street. “We reached out to them. For them to treat us the way they have over the last four years is disgusting.

“The punishment the jury decided on was the ultimate,” Geraldine Turner said. ”It was well deserved.”

Angeline Blaylock, Turner’ smother, was not in the courtroom Friday because of a death in her husband’s family.

Claude Turner, Aaron Turner’s grandfather, told Mahon he had at times berated himself for not doing more to keep his grandson away from bad influences in the Coatesville community. He also said he had come to accept that there was real evil in the community.

But he also said he struggled with the task of forgiving Chapman and his family, as he said he should as a Christian. In the end, he turned to Chapman and said, “I forgive you. I forgive you. It’s hard, because I know you.”

Valerie Feaster, Turner’s paternal grandmother, who was clad in a black sweater and pants, said that her grandson was a “bundle of joy” who was killed by “evil in its highest.”

“Our loved one was taken away from us at a precious age,” Feaster said. “There was no reason for this crime. He (Chapman) thought he had the power that night (of the murder.)” But now, Chapman’s fate is in the hands of God, she said.

Mahon, speaking to Geraldine Turner, said that he lived not far from Coatesville and had seen how it had declined into violence over the years. The solution, he said, was not to turn away from people.

“A community has to stand together and not let the bad people dictate what the community is,” Mahon said. “I hope the good people can get together and take back their community.”

Carmody spoke to the stress the case placed on the family, not only because Turner was missing for several weeks before he was determined to have died, but also because of the circumstances surrounding his death. He told Mahon how difficult it was for him to sit with Turner’s family and describe his murder and dismemberment.

“I didn’t know how I could possibly speak to this,” Carmody said. “All we could say is that we would try our best to speak for Aaron,” he said of those involved in the prosecution.

Chapman’s death sentence makes him the fourth person who will serve on death row in state prison in a case from Chester County since the death penalty was reinstated in the late 1970s. He is the first person to be sentenced to death by a jury since 1994, also in a Coatesville murder.

The additional prison time for Chapman came from the other charges he was found guilty of, including abuse of a corpse, cruelty to animals, possession of instruments of crime, possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, and illegal possession of a firearm. Each of the sentences was set to run consecutively.

After the hearing, Charles Graves, who is Chapman’s stepfather, offered condolences to Turner’s family.

“Both families lost,” he told reporters as he sat in the hallway outside Mahon’s courtroom. “They lost and we lost. I wish the family a happy Christmas, and I am sorry for what happened.”